Treating Symptoms Not Causes

I am borrowing this title from Sasha at Left in SF, who brings up an excellent point that I would like to take a step further. The governor's major proposals, in his State of the State speech, to solve our most vexing problems from health care, to water storage, to prisons is to treat the symptoms of the problems not the root causes.

His health care proposal does little to ensure an efficient provider system. The failure to do more to reign in insurance costs will mean that we continue to overpay for sub-par health care. The big winners are Arnold's big backers in the insurance industry and the rest of us from business owners to employees to the government itself lose out.

What were Arnold's solutions to water demand and prison overcrowding? Maxing out the state credit card. He wants another round of bond borrowing totaling $29.4 billion that would literally put the state at it's debt limit for the next decade. All of this from a man, who promised to cut up the state's credit card. Anyone remember this picture?

That is Arnold in 2003, cutting up the state's credit card.

Rather than emphasizing rehabilitation or re-evaluating our sentencing guidelines, he reached straight for the plastic. Our prison system is a complete disaster no doubt. But when Arnold has a chance to exhibit real leadership, he wants to take the easy way out and not find solutions to the root problems.

The same thing is true when it comes to water storage. The Schwarzenegger administration is twisting itself into a pretzel to try and make damn construction appear green. Instead of spending time and energy on rhetorical tricks, they could be putting forth proposals to reduce demand. This is quite simple. From the SacBee:

The state's own estimates show that aggressive conservation could generate more than twice this much water.

Governmental programs to reduce demand for water would be a lot less expensive than the $6 billion he wants to spend on damns and groundwater storage. It is better for the environment and our state's credit card.

The one environmentally friendly measure that needs bond money is the high speed rail. Arnold has placed that on the back burner. If he maxes out the state credit card on damns and prisons, there will be no credit available for high speed rail. The $9.95 billion rail bond was scheduled to be placed on the ballot in 2008. Arnold does not want to see that happen. It is not a "priority".

The environmental solution to higher water demand is not to build more damns and drop the high speed rail proposal. It is not fiscally responsible, nor does it actually temper demand. A discussion of prison overcrowding, without addressing the reasons it exists in the first place, is irresponsible and wrongheaded. A health care proposal that forces more people, on the threat of fines, to get health insurance without taking a comprehensive look at how we reduce costs is negligent at best.

Arnold cannot simply reward his donors with big governmental contracts and more customers without getting at the root of the problem.